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AMD officially launched their next generation Kaveri processor today, finally realizing a long term vision of the company to fully integrate CPU and GPU resources on a single, monolithic chip architecture with a shared memory resource. Kaveri marks a number of firsts for AMD, though they’ve released many integrated APUs (Application Processing Unit) in the past. For starters, Kaveri is the first APU from AMD to incorporate the company’s GCN (Graphics Core Next) architecture that is found in their “Hawaii” series of GPUs for desktop gaming (Radeon R9 290 series).

Specifically, there is a 8-core GCN implementation in Kaveri that consumes a substantial 47% of the 2.41 billion transistor die. Each of those 8 GCN cores has 64 stream processors, for a total of 512. That’s a lot of graphics resources and of course AMD is highlighting their strength over competing IntelIntel integrated graphics solutions. There’s little question AMD’s strength will remain on the graphics side but the company is also introducing their new ‘Steamroller’ CPU architecture with Kaveri, which is expected to offer performance improvements of 10-percent or so, clock-for-clock versus the previous generation Piledriver architecture.

AMD Kaveri Chip Architecture: Steamroller Cores, GCN GPUs and hUMA

In total, AMD is calling Kaveri a 12 “compute core” chip with 4 Steamroller CPU cores and 8 GCN graphics cores connected to a shared, unified memory architecture that AMD calls “hUMA,” which stands for “heterogeneous unified memory access.” Essentially, the new architecture offers a tighter coupling of compute and graphics engines with the chip’s memory DDR3 memory controller interface that now operates up to DDR3-2400 speeds. The chip allows both CPU and GPU cores to have coherent access to memory with additional system-level atomic operations to synchronize workloads across different core types. Finally, Kaveri also integrates PCI ExpressExpress Gen 3 serial links for faster discrete graphics and CrossFire multi-GPU graphics performance.

Kaveri’s total architecture package furthers AMD’s efforts in HSA (Heterogeneous System Architecture), though software developers will have to optimize for such an architecture in order to capitalize on its inherent advantages (lower latencies, more efficient workload distribution etc.). In the meantime, Kaveri will have to rely on its CPU core optimizations and stronger graphics core engine to compete out of the gate.

Today AMD launched three SKUs – the A10-7850K, A10-7700K and A8-7600. The A10-7850K is the top-end part with a 95 Watt TDP, 4GHz max turbo with a 3.7GHz base clock and a full 8-core GPU (512 stream processors). The 95 Watt A10-7700K offers a base 3.5GHz clock, top-end 3.8GHz speed and a 6-core GPU (384 stream processor) implementation. And finally, what AMD feels is their performance-per-watt sweet spot, the 65 Watt A8-7600 offers a 3.3GHz base clock, max turbo of 3.8GHz and a 6-core GPU (384 SP) implementation. The A8-7600 is also configurable in system BIOS for a 45 Watt TDP as well. All of these Kaveri APUs have two Steamroller modules affording 4 processing cores with 4 threads of execution.

In terms of performance, AMD still hasn’t caught up to Intel’s CPU architecture, with Core i3 dual-cores competing favorably still versus the 65 Watt A8 Kaveri quad-core and even the 95 Watt A10 Kaveri chip for CPU-intensive tasks. However, as expected, AMD’s value proposition in multimedia, gaming and graphics processing is strong. AMD’s GCN architecture offers sizable performance gains over the previous generation architecture and in certain game tests even the lower-end A8-7600 offers almost 2X the performance of a 4th generation Intel Haswell-based Core i5-4670K with integrated HD 4600 graphics.

AMD’s initial go-to-market strategy for the new Kaveri APUs that were launched today is the elegant, low power and quiet computing arena. Applications like Home Theater PCs, All-In-Ones and other low profile form-factors, that need strong graphics and multimedia performance, make a good use case for these SKUs from AMD. The AMD A8-7600 will be priced at $119 and will be available in Q1. The higher-end A10-7700K and A10-7850K are slated for immediate availability at $152 and $173 price points, respectively.

Kaveri might not be a huge gain for AMD in terms of CPU architecture but it’s a strong advancement in graphics performance and the introduction of a true Heterogeneous System Architecture. With ISV support for HSA, in addition to AMD’s Mantel API for game development, the incremental hardware advancements of Kaveri could show even stronger in future generation products, as AMD drives the Kaveri architecture down through their product stack in to mobile.

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“The average person can see when their video looks horrible, or the game won’t even play.

When people start to realize that Intel is OVER charging them for significantly worse performance when it really counts…”

1) Video quality is 100% dependent on your codecs and monitor, there is no difference between h264 decoded with DXVA or with pure x86 software using the same algorithms. Likewise gaming quality usually doesn’t change, but AMD has been known to use cheats to increase performance, their 7950 had an issue where textures were “softer”, and the eventual “fix” resulted in significant (though small) loses in performance. 2) As a gamer and engineer who need large amounts of computing power, I can tell you an i3 processor is as powerful as an 8350 processor in games and other single threaded programs, at half the price. Also as a gamer and programmer, I can tell you that integrated graphics are a joke, even the Kaveri ones.

“But, for the average person who is playing a video game, or some other graphic intensive application, milliseconds matter a lot!”

Those people would not be using entry level integrated graphics at all. Graphics intensive applications need dedicated GPUs, and when you get into CAD type systems, you are looking at professional cards with professional drivers.

“For the average person, does it really matter if general purpose computing is a few milliseconds faster?”

Do you use a laptop? If so, a few milliseconds at a time can mean the difference between 10 hours of battery life and just 8. Why? Because the more time the CPU stays in minimum idle the better, and unless you use Windows 8, timer coalescing doesn’t work as well and you need to have the CPU end before the next timer in order to sleep the CPU. There’s a reason why Haswell+Windows 8 made the Surface Pro 2 have twice the battery life despite practically everything other than CPU being equal.

This looks like a nice chip for a small low-end SteamBox without an add-in GPU. I would like to buy/put something like that together.

But only if AMD has engineers onsite at Valve enabling rapid adoption of their “Mantle” technology. It’s the software that puts over the value proposition for me. It’s a couple CPU generations before I’m going to need to refresh my “PC” platforms again, so this is the only use case I’m interested in right now. Maybe ever, since these make great PC devices as well.

nVidia has put the resources in play to help Valve leverage their GPUs in SteamOS and Valve’s game engines. If AMD doesn’t want to put the resources there, at least there’s an alternative.

Thanks. Good simple comparisons for framing where they’re at. Like others, I find myself rooting for AMD because of their tendency to open the chip up for user tweaks and because of Intel’s Antitrust violations when they were involved in bid-rigging through kickbacks to the OEM’s. The free market only works when their are rules and everyone follows them. That being said, I need a good honest assessment of where AMD’s new direction puts them with respect to performance.

The one thing that’s missing in these types of assessments is multithreaded performance. Ironically AMD’s biggest appeal seems to be for the home system where gaming and such doesn’t demand much multithreading. Intel, which is worse at multithreading, is more popular at the office where multithreading is needed. I’d like to see a test on Tom’s Hardware or Anand or whatever where they load up a system with Word, Excel, two browser sessions, while running something cpu and disk intensive like a SAS program. That’s the real world of business. I find that my I7 bogs down everytime I run the intensive program for more than a minute or so. Presumably because there’s not a lot of resource separation between cores. So multi-tasking is often single tasking with minor auxilliary windows that will sort of run. At least it’s that way with my i7. I’d like to see some tests that compare the AMD heavy duty chips with Intel’s better i7′s with this kind of set up. Business use is where we ae (sometimes) willing to spend more for a better processor. I just wish there were some honest measures out there of how the different strategies perform under the disk intensive multi-tasking enviorinments we have in business rather than all the gamin comparisons I see in the tech press. High-end, single core gaming isn’t really indicative of whether it will bog-down under business use.

Follow-up: Technically speaking I guess we do not know enough to characterize the Intel action as ‘bid-rigging.’ We can say that they were found to use their market power and kick-back payments to manufacturers in order to prevent manufacturers from using AMD or other chip makers. The FTC also ordered Intel to refrain from using their market power to sabatoge universal standards that other manufacturers depended on, particularly the PCI bus, to keep Panfrs. from using other chips. The order also said they could not engineer ‘bugs’ into the systems which acheived this effect. This last requirement only extended 6 years.

An interesting difference between the two companies is that Intel continues full speed ahead into smaller, faster, stronger, low-current chips for most of it’s line and is fully committed to this direction. AMD has pivoted and gone towards affordable and less complex to build and it would take Intel years to catch up should it chose to. Intel may remain the preferred chip for moderate to beefy laptops/desktops. With respect to the “internet of things” however, AMD may have a decisive edge. It’s probably only a matter of time before GE builds a touch screen panel into it’s next fridge. A com express board powered by an APU from AMD would be more than sufficient for the electronics and media in cars, presumably cheaper than one using Intel chips — and they might be a lot easier to design than current electronics. These kinds of things are small run items compared to gaming consoles, but they are persistent, ongoing items of production.

“Intel, which is worse at multithreading, is more popular at the office where multithreading is needed. I’d like to see a test on Tom’s Hardware or Anand or whatever where they load up a system with Word, Excel, two browser sessions, while running something cpu and disk intensive like a SAS program. ”

Here: anandtech.com/show/7677/amd-kaveri-review-a8-7600-a10-7850k

As for “ intel is worse at multithreading”, what are you smoking? There are many ways of determining performance, and Intel’s method of maximizing utilization helps conserve power over the brute force approach of AMD. Though theoretically the AMD method is closest to having true extra cores (hardware duplication wise), the end effect is that an “8 core” AMD chip is not much better than 4-core Intel with HT enabled (ignoring the horribly inefficient “cores” AMD uses) in practice.

“With respect to the “internet of things” however, AMD may have a decisive edge. It’s probably only a matter of time before GE builds a touch screen panel into it’s next fridge. A com express board powered by an APU from AMD would be more than sufficient for the electronics and media in cars, presumably cheaper than one using Intel chips”

Just do a quick search for “arduino galileo”, edison, and just about anything else made with the Quark X1000, Intel leapfrogged AMD’s tech in “internet of things” category so far they’ll need rockets to catch up. But more than AMD and Intel, the “internet of things” will be powered by ARM type chips due to the very low cost of ARMv7 based SoC (though the X1000 has a lot of things built in that give it a cost advantage, like support for mPCI based wireless)